


All These Lights, They Shine For You

by im2old4thisotp



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 16:30:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13127502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/im2old4thisotp/pseuds/im2old4thisotp
Summary: Stiles and Lydia finally have their dream house.The only problems are their obnoxious, condescending neighbor, and the realization that they've been unaware of the neighborhood's big secret.





	All These Lights, They Shine For You

**Author's Note:**

> Who decides to write "a short Stydia drabble for Christmas" two days before Christmas Eve? And then gets carried away and makes it a 7k+ piece?
> 
> Oh, that's right. I do. In one day, no less.
> 
> This is the result of going to do fun holiday things with my family, and then spending a big chunk of the time there imagining "What Would Stydia Do?"
> 
> Hope you enjoy this silly piece of Stydia fluff. It was fun to imagine.

 

  
  


*********************************

 

They had finally found it.

It had taken forever—almost a full year of showings and trekking around the city with their Realtor. They weren’t trying to be annoying. But Stiles wanted mature trees and a yard and a garage, and Lydia required a house that had character and within a certain distance from the university, and so it just...took a while. Most of the neighborhoods close to the university were cookie-cutter brand-new homes that were as boring as they were abundant. Their Realtor had said she wasn’t annoyed by their selectivity (“That’s just a nice way of saying how picky we are,” Stiles had quipped.), and had smiled every time they had left another house that didn’t live up to their expectations. “Your house is out there,” she would cheerfully say. “When we get there, you’ll  _ know _ .” She always said so with a smile on her face, but Stiles could swear that her smile got tighter and tighter the longer the search dragged on.

But finally, they had found it. An incredible Cape Cod in a neighborhood with a palm tree-lined street and kids riding their bikes on the sidewalks. It had a fenced-in yard and built-in shelving and original wood floors and vaulted ceilings and as soon as they had walked in, it was like the house said their names out loud.  _ This is it _ , he thought, and when he looked at Lydia, he could tell she was thinking the exact same thing.

They closed the last week of April. Everyone was extremely friendly and welcoming, and they had some frozen meals within the first week and even a gifted welcome mat from their astute next-door neighbors, the Becketts (it said “Alohomora” on it, and Stiles declared that they were never moving, ever).

So far, they had only discovered a few problems. There were the typical house-related things that you’d expect when you move in: a leaky faucet in the upstairs bathroom that Stiles had made a huge mess trying to fix (thank god for YouTube tutorials or it would have been even  _ worse _ ), a loose floorboard that Lydia managed to tamp down with the drill that the Sheriff had bought her for Christmas. But there were also a couple of strange things that they weren’t really sure what to do with.

The most annoying thing was their neighbor across the street, Frank Thomas. He and his wife Ashley had been friendly enough when they first moved in, but it soon became apparent that they were the neighborhood watchdogs. Which was unfortunate, since they were the representatives for the neighborhood association, and found it their job to keep the neighborhood in line with “the spirit of community and the commitment to its beautification” (Frank’s  _ actual _ words). What this translated to was official-looking notes in their mailbox asking them to “keep the trash situation under control” (they had a couple of bags that were sticking out of the can the weekend after they moved in) and “lawn ornaments are to be a minimum of 2’ in height and 3’ in width” after Stiles erected his life-sized Darth Vader in the front yard for Star Wars Day in May (much to Lydia’s chagrin, but she’s the one that bought it for him, so she couldn’t really say too much about it).

This just rubbed Stiles all kinds of the wrong way. He soon made it his mission to make Frank’s eyebrows scrunch in frustration at least once a week, if not once a day. His favorite was to sing classic rock at the top of his lungs while he was mowing the lawn. He'd also rented a huge, 20-foot inflatable slide in their front yard one weekend just for fun, and spray-painted their entire lawn with an American flag for Independence Day—that one really made Frank turn an ugly shade of puce. Thankfully, it wasn’t anything that the other neighbors were bothered by—in fact, they kind of encouraged Stiles, saying that Frank had been a pain in their asses since the day they’d moved in, and it was fun to see him looking constipated all the time.

The other strange thing about the house—and one they didn’t understand for a few months—was the unusual message that the selling agent had given them at closing. “Just so you know, the neighborhood does something at Christmas.” After that, he had shaken their hands and given them the keys, so they didn’t have time to dwell on it. Anyways, Christmas was  _ months _ away. That was, until Halloween, when the neighbors all came by throughout the night, each of them saying different variations of, “We’re excited to see what you all have planned for Christmas!”

By the end of the night, Stiles was really, really quirked. When they were packing up their lawn chairs and emptying the last of the candy bowl back into the bag, Stiles asked Lydia, “Do you have any idea what everyone’s talking about with this Christmas thing?” 

She simply shrugged her shoulders at him.

“First the realtor, now everyone in the neighborhood talking about it? It just seems really weird.”

The next day, as he drove down the street, he noticed that the houses had started looking suspiciously Christmas-y. He was usually a “Keep Thanksgiving Pure” kinda guy, and he got the immediate impression that the neighborhood didn’t hold to that. When Nathan Beckett, their next-door neighbor, pulled into the driveway at the same time, Stiles decided to get to the bottom of it.

Twenty minutes later, he was bursting into the house, panic flooding through his features as he searched for his wife.

“Lydia!”

“I’m in here!” Her voice floated in from the kitchen. He stumbled through the front door, finding her stirring a cup of tea and reading the latest copy of  _ Scientific American _ .

“Oh my god, this is way worse than I would have guessed.” His breath was labored—he had run over in a panic, and his breathing was slow to catch up.

“What is worse?”

“The  _ Christmas thing _ , Lydia. Do you know what it is?” Lydia opened her mouth to answer, but Stiles rushed ahead, cutting her off. “Well, I’ll tell you what it is. We live on fucking  _ Candy Cane Lane _ , Lydia. The entire street decks out every square inch of their houses and yards with enough lights so that they can literally be seen from space. They even string lights across the street from house-to-house. It’s like Christmas Vacation over here, except every single family is the Griswolds. Everyone from the city comes to see it.”

Lydia sipped her tea carefully. “I see.”

“I see?” Stiles squeaked, flailing his arms. “That’s all you have to say?  _ I see? _ Don’t you understand? There are literally buses of people that get dropped off at the entrance to our neighborhood! Thousands of people come by every year!”

“Well, Stiles, I’m not really sure what you want me to say about it.”

“Well, we obviously have to get planning! We can’t be the only house on the block that has no lights on, or we’ll look like idiots! We’ll get egged—or egg nogged—and booed by everyone that walks by!”

“No one is going to boo us, Stiles.”

Stiles sputtered. “Oh, yes they will. It’s why the last neighbors moved out! They were Jewish, and they got tired of everyone yelling at their house for a month and a half out of every year.”

Lydia sighed. “I’m sure that’s not the only reason they moved out, Stiles.”

“Nathan said it was!” Stiles started pacing back and forth in the kitchen, working a path by the island that separated he and Lydia. “The first cars come the Sunday after Thanksgiving, so everyone plans all year, and then they all work frantically between Halloween and Thanksgiving to get everything put up. And... _ and! _ He also said that Frank has, like, the best house in the neighborhood. He wins every year.”

Lydia looked back at her magazine, taking another sip of her tea. “Wins what?”

“The Grand Champion of the Best and Brightest Competition!”

Lydia choked a bit on her tea, lowering the mug slowly and wiping her chin. “The  _ what now _ ?”

Stiles huffed, waving his hands in agitation. “The Best and Brightest Competition. It’s a huge competition around the city each year, and the winner gets $5,000.  _ Five. Thousand. Dollars, Lydia! _ Plus...plus! They get to ride in the front of the Independence Day parade. In a Corvette.”

Lydia smirked at him. “That’s pretty….great, Stiles.”

“ _ Pretty great _ ? It’s fucking fantastic!” Stiles had a lingering obsession with parades since he was a kid. His dad always got to ride in the coolest cars in the Beacon Hills parades, and Stiles had always been wildly jealous. “We can  _ totally _ kick the Thomas’ asses, Lydia. With your brain and my design skills, we will wipe the floor with  _ everybody _ .” He started to get out a piece of paper and pencil, ideas flying through his head already. “We can do Star Wars on the roof and...get this? We can make the house a transition between land and sea so that The Little Mermaid is in the yard—like it’s under the sea!”  His hands started flying across the paper, writing down his ideas in horrible chicken scratch that he’d have to translate later.

“So, what do you say, Lydia? Should we get started?” He looked at her expectantly.

She took a deep breath, setting the mug down on top of her magazine. She looked at him straight in the eyes.

“No.”

Stiles’ own eyes widened at her response. “ _ No? _ ”

“I’m sorry, Stiles. But it  _ has _ to be no.”

“But why?”

“Well, let’s think about it logically, alright?”

_ Damn it. _ She always thought about things logically and ended up winning. But they could totally do this! He wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

“I know you want to do this—god knows I would love to see Frank taken down a notch or two,” Stiles smiled at the admission. “But we just won’t have time to do something like that. I’m giving finals in two weeks, and you’re working on the final manuscript of your book, and then we go back to Beacon Hills for a week. There’s no way we’ll have time to plan and buy and string lights and make it look good enough to beat Frank.”

_ Damn her and her sound logic _ .

“But Lydia...we’ll look so bad! We’ll be run out of the neighborhood!”

She shook her head at him. “First, Nathan won’t let you be run out of the neighborhood—who will he play  _ Battlefront _ with?” Stiles nodded and shrugged his shoulders in concession to that point. “Second, we won’t have an empty house. We can go pick up a few strands of lights from Target—we’ll put an acceptable amount around our windows and a wreath on the front door so that we won’t be booed, and we can pass out hot chocolate and candy canes to appease the masses that get dropped off.”

Stiles acknowledged that it wasn’t a  _ bad _ idea. “They can’t hate us too much if we feed them, I guess.”

Lydia walked slowly around the island, and wrapped her arms around his waist, burying her face into his chest. “I’m sorry we can’t do more this year—but maybe next year we can have your Dad come up here for Thanksgiving. Then we can work on a kickass display all together.”

Stiles leaned his head down and dropped a kiss onto the top of her head before smiling into her hair. He was disappointed, but she was right. Everything was crazy right now, and trying to squeeze in multiple days to string lights was just not going to be plausible. He was half-tempted to cancel Thanksgiving plans, but Melissa would kill him—and Scott and Kira would drive up here and eviscerate him themselves, if his dad didn’t shoot him first—so he put that plan to bed.

“I hate knowing the looks that Frank will give me. But—I guess you’re right.”

“I don’t like being right like this,” Lydia admitted into his chest. “We’ll kick his ass soon enough though, alright?”

“Hell yes, we will.”

A couple of weeks later, they were packing their car to head out, and Stiles tried not to look wistfully at the houses around them, the trappings of holiday decor getting more and more prevalent. When they pulled out of the driveway, Frank waved them down. Stiles groaned, but Lydia whispered, “Be nice, Stiles.”

Stiles pulled over, rolling his window down.

“Hey, Frank!”

“Hiya, Stoles. Lydia.”

Stiles bit back the retort he was dying to spit out. Frank had given him enough notices over the last 7 months to know that he  _ knows _ Stiles’ name. He just likes to piss him off. “It’s Stiles, remember?”

“Right.  _ Stiles _ . Such an unusual name to remember, you know? So, are you guys headed out for the holiday?”

Stiles nodded, eager to get on the road. “Yep. Headed to see my Dad.”

Frank feigned sadness. “Aww, it’s too bad you won’t be joining in the Christmas fun this year. We always go all out in the spirit of the season. Ashley and I like to set a good example for everyone.” He gestured to his house, which had candy canes lining the drive, and the beginnings of a pretty complex light configuration underway. “We like to keep it classy, but still make it look great. It’s really  _ too bad _ your house will be in the dark while ours light up the night.”

Stiles could feel his fingernails digging into his palms around the steering wheel. His lungs were about to burst, he was holding back his words so much. Lydia put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. “I’m sure it will be beautiful, Frank. We look forward to seeing it when we get back. Tell Ashley hello for us, okay?”

“Surely will do. Buh-bye now!” Frank said in a saccharine tone.

Stiles couldn't pull away fast enough. He jammed his finger on the window button, willing it to go as fast as possible, shutting out the smug face of their rotten neighbor.

“Knowing him, he’ll figure out a way to fine us for  _ not _ participating. I  _ hate _ that guy.”

Lydia continued squeezing his shoulder, moving down the length of his arm until she could pull his arm and lace her fingers through Stiles’ own. “Let’s not let him ruin our vacation, alright? We’ll figure out what to do with him later.”

He tried to keep the wistfulness out of his voice as they drove away. “The neighborhood is gonna look incredible.” From the look of sympathy that Lydia gave him in return, he knew he had failed.

Stiles took a deep breath, and resigned himself to having the lamest house in the neighborhood. Maybe they could wear sandwich boards that said “We’re New Here—Please Be Nice” or something like that.

The drive to Beacon Hills was uneventful. Stiles found his melancholy melting away the further they drove away from their new home, replaced with an excitement at seeing his Dad and Melissa, Scott, Kira, maybe even Liam. He hadn’t been back in a couple of years, and he missed the old homestead.

Thanksgiving back in his old house was incredible. Melissa made enough food to feed the entire pack plus about ten other werewolves, so they had leftovers for days. Stiles went into the station and helped his dad with some paperwork, Scott and Kira took their baby boy home for a nap (promising to come back later for more leftovers at dinnertime) and Lydia and Melissa helped decorate the Sheriff’s tree with all of their old ornaments. When the boys arrived home, they got wistful looks in their eyes at the display of Claudia’s favorite decorations and Stiles’ childhood ornaments. 

After that, the Sheriff went to the garage and pulled out a big, vintage, plastic snowman, one that Stiles remembered setting up in the yard every year with his mom. The paint on it was faded, and it had a small hole in the side, but Stiles shed a tear when he saw it.

“I thought you’d thrown it away,” Stiles choked out.

“Nah, kid,” Sheriff replied, his own voice rough. “Just wasn’t able to get it out for a while there. Thought maybe you’d like to have it.”

Stiles gave him a huge hug, taking the snowman gently from him. He plugged it in, ecstatic to see that it still worked. “We may not have a huge light display, but this is perfect, Dad. Thanks."

Later that night, Scott and Kira came back and they ate themselves silly again, then downed a gallon of spiked eggnog and played a cutthroat game of Settlers of Catan. It was weird sleeping with Lydia in his old room, with his dad only a few doors away, but he tried not to focus on it too much.

The weekend was a perfect time to relax. Stiles was able to put the finishing touches on his first draft of his manuscript, and Lydia spent her time grading papers. Lydia spent some of the weekend on the phone, always excusing herself to talk outside, asking for forgiveness, saying there was “a school issue”, but not giving details. By the time Sunday night rolled around, they were ready to head back home, a few pounds heavier and their hearts full to bursting.

“Is everything okay with school?” Stiles asked her on the way home.

Lydia sighed. “Yes. There were a few students who were confused about one of their finals, but I think they got it figured out in the end. We’ll see.”

Stiles smiled at her as they threaded their fingers together on the console. “You’re an amazing professor, did you know that?”

Lydia looked at him. “What makes you say that?”

“Well, not many teachers would make themselves available over break. But you took their questions even when we were at my Dad’s house.”

“Are you mad?”

Stiles raised her hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles gently. “Not at all. I’m so proud of you.”

Lydia smiled back at him, settling her head against the headrest. “I’ve really loved this class. They’ve surprised me with their dedication.”

“I mean, I’m not surprised they’re dedicated to you. I’d kick my own ass to impress you.”

Lydia chuckled. “Now that would be a sight.”

They drove in companionable silence for the rest of the drive back to the city, but Stiles’ fingers began tapping with anxiety the closer they got to home.

“What is it, Stiles?” Lydia asked him.

Stiles sighed. He didn’t  _ want _ to be annoyed about the light thing. He didn’t  _ want _ to be anxious about how they would look compared to everyone else. But—he just couldn’t help it. He was childish and petty about stupid things like competitions with obnoxious neighbors. So sue him. But he also didn’t want to annoy Lydia about it. He’s a grown-ass man. He probably shouldn’t let it bug him so much. “It’s...it’s nothing. I’m just interested to see what the lights look like in the neighborhood, that’s all.”

Lydia looked him over—he could feel her eyes assessing him, but he kept his own eyes on the road, knowing that if he looked at her, the dam would break and he’d go on a rant about neighborhood association bullies and how Frank could shove the $5,000 and his condescending attitude where the sun don’t shine.

A short time later, they were pulling into their neighborhood, a line of cars already parked lining the street by the entrance to their development.

“Wow—they weren’t kidding about people coming the weekend after Thanksgiving, were they?” Stiles mused.

“Guess people really want to see the lights while they still have family in town,” Lydia answered, looking around.

The neighborhood was jaw-droppingly beautiful. There was a roped-lighting sign over the entrance to the street, proclaiming the beginning of Candy Cane Lane. Each house seemed to be brighter and more beautiful than the next. Some of them went for a classy look, with all white lights and large round ornaments hanging from the trees that lined the street, some went for coverage, with thousands of lights stranded in rows on roofs and around windows. Stiles’ mouth dropped open at the sight of all of them. He couldn’t believe everything that had been done in just a week.

As they drove closer to their house, Stiles’ melancholy set in. Their house would be the lone dark spot in the entire neighborhood. It was slightly depressing. But they had picked up some lights from his Dad’s place, and they would string them up tonight if they had to, just so they wouldn’t have to endure the shame in complete darkness. Plus, they had the snowman.

“Stiles, pull over for a minute.” 

He looked at Lydia questioningly, but did it anyway, finding a spot a few houses in. He threw the car in park and gave her his attention—or as much attention as he could give her when his focus kept being pulled to the lights and the displays.

Lydia turned to look at him. “Look, I know the neighborhood light competition really got to you. But I promise. We’ll be in it from now on, okay? I don’t want this to ruin Christmas in our first house together. Will you promise me that it won’t?”

Stiles took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He didn’t want to be responsible for ruining Christmas for the two of them with his attitude. They had worked so hard to find this home—one they had been dreaming about for a long time. “Yeah. Okay. I promise, Lydia.”

Lydia smiled at him gently. “Thank you.” She leaned over the console and placed a gentle kiss to his lips. “I’m so excited to start new traditions together.”

He smiled back at her. “Me, too.”

He leaned in to give her another kiss, but was startled by a car horn from behind them. Apparently they were holding up the traffic pattern.

Stiles put the car back in drive and continued through the neighborhood, turning onto their street. He looked for the dark spot, keeping his attitude light, but frowned a bit when he didn’t see it. In fact, he almost drove past their own house. He looked back behind him, counting the houses to be sure he wasn’t missing something.

As he pulled up closer, he realized why he was having so much trouble. The dark space that he was expecting his house to be in was ablaze with light. He rolled to a stop in front of the house, his eyes blown wide and his mouth open in shock. He tried to take in everything at once, which was impossible because of the sheer amount of things he was seeing, so instead he focused on one area at a time, his mind having difficulty processing everything at once.

Their house was completely covered from top to bottom with lights of every color. Strands of red, and white covered the front of the house in wide stripes so it looked like a candy cane. There was a tree of LED lights blinking on and off in patterns of white and red and green. Every window was surrounded by a different color of light, and they were blinking on and off in patterns, too. There were rainbow-shaped arches in the front yard, also ablaze with flashing lights, and where there had been grass when they left, their yard was now completely white with snow. It threw Stiles for a moment, until he realized that the yard had been covered carefully and completely with quilt batting so that it looked like fresh snow had fallen. 

Stiles’ eyes trailed up to the roof where he gasped in amazement. There was a lightsaber battle going on atop the roof of their garage between a life-size Luke Skywalker and a life-size Darth Vader. Not inflatables, but mannequins. That  _ moved _ . Stiles could hear the crash of the lightsaber sound effects, even through the car window. The roof was lined with red lights so it looked like the fight in Empire Strikes Back. On top of the roof was a tie-fighter battle, complete with a Millennium Falcon that swung around the chimney and off the side of the roof in a motorized circle. Above the roof was glittering with stars and a Death Star was in the distance, just off the highest point of the roof.

The lights were blinking on and off in patterns, and Stiles couldn’t make sense of it until he noticed the music in the car turning up. He looked over where Lydia had her hand on the radio dial, turning the volume up and looking at him with a knowing smirk.

He looked back as the music swelled, and his jaw dropped again as he realized: the lights were timed with the music from the Imperial March.

“Oh. My. God.” His voice sounded embarrassingly juvenile and squeaky, but he couldn’t bring it within himself to care.

Another impatient honk sounded from behind them, and Stiles flailed a bit before hitting the remote and pulling into the garage. He was searching his brain frantically for something to say, but his mind had been wiped clean by the spectacle. He turned the car off and stumbled out of the driver’s seat and down the driveway, finally stopping when he was in the middle of the sidewalk in front of their house, standing with his head thrown back, trying to take in everything at once.

Every time he looked at a new part of the house, he found new details. There was a Yoda clinging to the palm tree in the front yard, which had been decorated with green lights and strands of what looked like Dagobah moss. The right side of the yard was decorated completely with blue lights on the ground, and a wooden cutout of Ariel was popping up out of the “water”, looking goofily at the R2-D2 that was perched atop her head.

Running from the front door to the largest tree by their mailbox was a lever and pulley system, with tie-fighters and rebel x-wings chasing each other around and around in circles. On the porch, an inflatable door opened periodically to reveal Han and Leia wrapped in a passionate kiss--when he looked closely, he saw it was a blown-up cutout of one of their wedding pictures, photoshopped with different outfits on.

Stiles finally wrenched his eyes away from the cacophony of lights, his eyes wide and unblinking as he searched for Lydia, who he belatedly realized that he had abandoned completely in the car. He usually did the gentlemanly thing and opened the door for her, but in his rush to take in the insanity that was their house, he completely forgot. Thankfully, she was standing just a few feet away from him, her own eyes alight with excitement as she looked around the house.

“Lydia, what the  _ fuck _ is all this?”

Stiles could see the blush that crept over her cheeks as she slowly made her way over to where Stiles was standing. “Do you like it?”

Stiles did a double-take. That was  _ not _ the response he was expecting. He thought she would be just as surprised as he was. “Wait... _ you _ did this?”

“Well, not me  _ personally _ .”

“Wha—? How?”

Lydia took a deep breath. “Well, I had a whole group of electrical engineering majors in my Multivariable Calculus class, and because of some very unfortunate choices around pledging time, their grades were tanked, and a few of them were facing expulsion—freshmen and sophomores have absolutely  _ zero _ self-control, apparently—so I offered them a very productive way to get extra credit, and I worked with the dean to have them on probation until the end of the semester.” She smirked at him, and Stiles’ mind went crazy.

“You had students decorate our house? _ In exchange for better grades? _ ”

“Well, that makes me sound completely trashy.” Lydia looked a little offended by the implication.

Stiles replied, “I was actually gonna be impressed. That’d be very Stiles-ish of you.”

Lydia nodded her agreement at that. "You must be rubbing off on me." There was no mistaking that Stiles would definitely use the system to his advantage—another reason it was probably a good thing he wasn’t an educator. He’d use the entire student body as his minions. Lydia continued. “No, one of the group projects for the course was to create design schematics and create them practically. I just made it specific to decorating our house. They got extra credit for implementing aspects of our personalities in the design. Each team was assigned a different part of our house—the roof, the porch, the different parts of the yard, all belonged to different teams. If the class could manage to pull together a cohesive design, their bonus points would go up, so they all had to work together.”

“Wait—when did this extra credit plan get introduced?”

Lydia paused for a moment, then smiled. “In mid-September.”

Stiles’ eyes widened with understanding. “So, you knew about the neighborhood Christmas thing the entire time we’ve lived here?”

Lydia rolled her eyes at him. “Of course. It’s in the neighborhood association handbook.”

“There’s a  _ handbook _ ? How did I not know about this?”

“They gave it to us at closing.”

“Well why didn’t I know about it?”

Lydia gave him with an exasperated look. “Would you really have read it?”

“Well, no.”

“That’s why I didn’t tell you. I wanted this,” she gestured to the house, “to be a surprise.”

Stiles shook his head in wonder. He was still struggling to get his brain back online. The lights and the spectacle were certainly making it difficult. Then the image of 30 college students working on his house came to mind. “Wait—how did you get them to actually do this over a holiday break?”

“Like I said, some of them made some  _ very _ bad choices. That and I also offered 10 extra credit points to anyone who showed up to help decorate. I think when faced with the choice of explaining their expulsions to their parents or showing up for at least 4 hours of decorating, they chose decorating. Dr. Wheeler said everyone in the class turned up. It was quite the party.”

Stiles huffed in surprise, then blinked as he had a realization. “Wait, how did we  _ pay _ for all this?”

“I got a bonus...when they gave me tenure.”

Stiles’ jaw dropped in shock. “ _ Tenure? _ But..you’ve only been there 4 years.”

“Yeah, well...they want me to continue my research, and...they like my work, so…”

Stiles connected the dots himself. “...They made an exception just for you. My god, you’re a  _ genius _ .”

“Yes, I know.” Lydia flipped her hair, and Stiles laughed out loud, the look of pride on her face not escaping his notice. He pulled her into his arms and hugged her.

“God, Lydia. I’m so proud of you.”

Lydia’s reply was muffled into his chest, and laughter rumbled through him. She was so short, and sometimes it made communication difficult.

She pulled back and tilted her head back to repeat her words, her eyes warm. “Thank you.”

He kissed her forehead, then shook his head in amazement again. “I can’t believe you got students to do this. You’re like...an educational wizard.”

Lydia chuckled. “My favorite part was how one group took it a step further and wrote an essay detailing how the entire yard design was an allegory for the relationship between you and me.”

Stiles frowned in surprise and looked around the blaring display. “ _ This _ is an allegory for  _ us _ ?”

Lydia nodded and pointed to Ariel, resting in the corner of her pond, still looking at R2-D2 with the mixture of exasperation and laughter. “That’s me. And I was happy in my own little world, until you came along and pulled me into your crazy fantasy land. And even though I get exasperated when you go all wild and crazy with your ideas, I secretly love them almost as much as I love you.”

Stiles was charmed, but also skeptical. “That’s the best they could come up with?”

Lydia shrugged. “They’re  _ engineering majors _ , not literature critics. I gave them points for the effort.”

Stiles threw his head back and laughed, holding his stomach when the cramp started. “Oh, my god, that’s hilarious.”

Lydia laughed with him, too, and she snuggled up into his side as he wiped tears off of his eyes with the back of his hand. 

“There is one thing missing, though,” Lydia added, when they had both relaxed a bit. “When I was on the phone with Dr. Wheeler, I asked him to make sure they left a space for our newest addition.”

She pulled away from him to grab the snowman from where it was standing on the sidewalk behind her.

Stiles smiled as he saw the snowman again, the symbol of his childhood once again ready to stand in front of his home. Lydia pointed to a bare space in the yard, just big enough for the snowman to sit comfortably. Stiles climbed over the fake snow, careful to not tear it up, and sat the snowman into its space, plugging it into the outlet that poked out of a strategic hole in the batting. The snowman lit up with pride, blinking on and off with the other lights around it, keeping time to the unheard music.

He stood up and stepped back off the snow, standing next to Lydia with his arm around her. He felt a warmth inside that had nothing to do with the weather.

“It disrupts the aesthetic of the entire picture, but it also completes it,” Stiles remarked, chuckling internally at the sight of the snowman from his childhood surrounded by a group of lighted AT-ATs. His heart went soft again, thinking of Lydia’s thoughtfulness to include it. “I can’t believe you did all of this for me,” Stiles remarked, looking down at Lydia. He loved how the dancing lights casted glows of every color off her face. Every color—a red hue, a blue glow, even a green cast—throwing her features into relief and somehow, inexplicably, enhancing her beauty. His breath caught a little as he saw the lights dance in her eyes, a small smile forming on her full lips.

She looked up at him, the small smile growing larger until the dimples popped out on her cheeks.

“I knew you would love it. The Star Wars alone makes you love it.”

Stiles nodded in agreement.

“You’re really surprised?”

He had to laugh out loud at that. “Of course! You didn’t think I would be?”

“Well,” Lydia began, “do you know how hard it is to surprise you? We’ve been together over five years, and I’m pretty sure you’ve known what your gift is every single year we’ve been together.” He opened his mouth to argue, but she cut him off. “Maybe not the specific gift, but you’ve known in a general sense what you’re getting for every birthday and holiday for our entire relationship. I figured when I had to field so many questions from Dr. Wheeler that you’d figure it out. You always figure it out.”

When she paused, Stiles ran over the last several gifts in his brain, and he was astonished to realize that she was right. He had either figured out what she was getting him—because of credit card bills and simple deduction—or by, you know,  _ snooping through the house _ . It had never bothered him, knowing what the gifts were, but he knew that Lydia would get frustrated. He always felt a little badly about it, but never bad enough to stop snooping. It would go against everything he was as a naturally inquisitive human to stop, really.

“You’re nearly impossible to surprise, Stiles. And also nearly impossible to get something past you. You’re too damn smart for me sometimes.”

Stiles preened at the praise. Coming from Lydia, that meant something. “I’m just trying to keep up with you, Ms. Tenured Professor at age 32.”

“When I saw the lighting competition, I knew you would want to go all out, with something outrageously tacky.” She gestured to the flashing monstrosity in front of them. “I figured, what better way to surprise you, than to do it for you?”

“Yeah, between the two of us, you’re definitely more of a greenery-and-white-lights kinda girl, and I’m—”

Lydia threw her arms around his waist again, cutting him off. “—You’re the buy-all-the-inflatables, make-the-entire-house-a-scene, fill-every-space-with-light kinda guy. You’re fun and outrageous and over-the-top, in all the best ways. And I am wildly grateful to have you, to light me up the same way.”

He looked down at her. She wasn’t one to wax poetic about their relationship. Between the two of them, he was the one who would talk for hours about the color of her hair and the emotions that she hides behind her eyes. So when she said something like this? Something about what he means to her? He holds on to it tightly. It’s almost better than a physical gift, because buying things has never been Lydia Martin’s problem. It’s the authentic reality of her emotions that trip her up.

He leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose, feeling the chill in his lips from her skin. “You really love me, don’t you? I mean, I knew you did. But for you to put up decorations as tacky as this? Just because it would make me happy?” He smiled when she ducked her head down into his chest, embarrassed. “You must  _ really _ love me.”

“Yes, Stiles. I  _ really _ love you.”

“I am one lucky sonofabitch.”

She poked him in his ribs, causing him to jerk in surprise. “Don’t you forget it, either.”  
  


*********************

American flags waved as kids lined Main Street, cheering in anticipation of the fire trucks and the bands as they prepared to start the parade. Soon they would pass down the street, honking their horns and playing patriotic music, all in celebration of Independence Day. Stiles tried to take it all in, but his heart was pounding with excitement, and he could only focus on following the woman with the clipboard who was giving him directions.

“You’ll be with Jim and Carla in the red car. There’s room for you and Lydia to sit together on the back. You’ll be making one pass down the street—be sure to wave. When you get to the grandstand, they’ll introduce you, and make sure you wave to your right side—that’s where the local camera crew will be set up. Give a smile and a wave into the camera, and you’ll sit back down and finish the parade route. There will be a banquet afterwards for all of our honored guests, so we hope you’ll join us.”

Stiles was glad Lydia was alongside him, holding his hand and listening, because he isn’t sure he heard half of what clipboarded lady said. He kinda zoned out after she said “red car” and he had scanned the parking lot for his chariot for the morning. When he laid eyes on the Corvette, he nearly started drooling. He was shaken out of it, though, by Lydia, who squeezed his hand.

“Oh, yes, thank you. We sure will.”

The clipboarded lady—Jenny? Janey?—nodded and walked off, talking to someone in her headset.

Lydia chuckled. “Do you have any idea what you just said yes to?”

“Not really. But that’s why I have you.”

Lydia sighed. “Why did I think that making our light display the best in the city and winning a prize that allowed you to ride in this parade was a  _ good _ idea?”

Stiles leaned down and kissed her gently. “Because you love me.”

Lydia shook her head with a smile. “God knows why. You’re insufferable.” Then she contradicted herself and kissed him back quickly. “We need to get to the car. They’re going to start in less than five minutes.

Stiles practically dragged Lydia along to the red Corvette, shaking hands with the owners, who showed him how to climb into the back and where to sit so he’d be the most comfortable. Stiles lingered for a moment on the outside of the car, enjoying the sight of his name and Lydia’s on the poster on the outside of the car, the picture of their house gracing the space next to their names.

“Stiles and Lydia Stilinski, 2017 Best and Brightest Competition Winners,” Stiles read aloud. He looked at Lydia, who had climbed into the car and was adjusting her skirt around her legs. “Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”

“Don’t get used to it, Stilinski. We’re going for clean and classy this year.”

Stiles clambered over the seats, perching himself next to Lydia. “You know you loved it last year.”

“I loved surprising you. I didn’t love the constant stream of people wanting to reenact the lightsaber battle on my front porch.”

Stiles couldn’t disagree there. It was a lot of fun doing the lights, but it was a lot of work, too. The people that came to see it were appreciative, but they both agreed, in January, that a little less flashy next year would suit them just fine. They had enjoyed Frank’s looks of constipation when they had won the competition, but once was enough. They had their fun—now it was time to give someone else in the neighborhood a shot.

The parade began, and Stiles could barely keep still on the seat. Lydia kept her hand clamped around his, probably ensuring that he wouldn’t tumble out of the back of the convertible while they were slowly rolling down the road. It wasn’t her worst idea, he’d give her that.

He tried to take in the sights and sounds of the parade. It was a small town, but the Independence Day parade was a big deal, and almost everyone from their community and the towns surrounding it showed up to cheer and/or participate in it. Stiles loved waving to the neighbors that they saw along the route. They started to feel like their community was home, and getting to represent their friends in the parade was pretty cool.

“We’re coming up to the grandstand, Stiles. Don’t forget what Janie said.”

“Who’s Janie?”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “The woman with the clipboard. The cameras will be on your right, so smile and wave at them when they introduce you over the loudspeaker.”

“Smile and wave. Got it.” Like he’d forget. His arms were throbbing and his cheeks hurt from all the smiling and waving he’d been doing so far.

The car rolled to a stop, and Stiles stood when he heard himself be announced over the speakers. He waved at the camera, beaming brightly, when he felt a slight tug on his other hand. He looked down at Lydia, who nodded in the direction of the camera. Just to the left stood Frank and Ashley, who both looked like they had eaten nothing but sour lemons for days on end.

Stiles plastered a brighter smile on his face, and he nodded and waved directly at them. “Yeah, take that, bitches!” he said under his breath, Lydia chuckling as she smiled and waved.

Stiles kept his eyes on Frank for a moment, and when the car started to roll again, Frank mouthed to the two of them, clearly enough to be understood.

_ You’re going down next year. _

Stiles looked at Lydia, whose eyes suddenly blazed with anger. She leaned over Stiles, and he could see her mouth back to Frank.

_ No fucking way. _

Stiles’ eyes widened in surprise. Lydia was always the calm one between the two of them. Now she was the one picking fights in the middle of a parade? With Frank Thomas? Stiles couldn’t help it. He smirked at her, and as she seemed to remember herself and sat upright, adjusting her skirt again, Stiles broke out into full, loud laughter. It rang out around the grandstand as they pulled away, and Stiles just caught Frank and Ashley furiously talking and gesturing at each other as they drove away.

“Ugh. I  _ hate _ that guy.” Lydia said angrily.

“We are so getting fined for some dumb-ass neighborhood rules now.”

Lydia shrugged. “No we won’t. I read the handbook. He’s got nothing on us.”

“Wanna kick his ass next year?” Stiles asked her, the smirk back on his face.

Lydia smirked back. “Oh, hell yes.” 

He raised his hand and she gave him a firm high-five, both of them smiling wickedly. Stiles turned his attention to the front of the car. 

“Jim? Carla? Can you hurry this along please?” He looked back at Lydia with resolution in his eyes. “We have some planning to do.”

 

**************

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas, everyone!!
> 
> Find me on Twitter and Tumblr @im2old4thisotp.
> 
> As always, comments are extremely appreciated!


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